Address to our Graduates 2025

My address today will be somewhat unconventional, and possibly a bit risky, since you, the students, will be involved. I trust your teachers and parents have prepared you adequately. And I have already informed the graduates that they would be involved somehow in this, too. So we will start with them.

Graduates, please come to the front area here. I’m guessing you have all made the trek to IKEA over a lunch break? Good. What is the best thing to do or purchase at IKEA? (various responses). Well, I went to IKEA this week and picked up three of these…

“Kyrre” - are any of you familiar with Kyrre? I didn’t think so....

Well, your task is to assemble three of them, live, in front of this studio audience! I am providing you with some tools to open the packaging, but the rest is up to you. You can decide if you want to work in teams of two, or form an assembly line - you have about 10 minutes to assemble three “Kyrre’s” before I have finished my speech. Don’t rush, I want you to do a good job! And please work together (it’s a three-legged stool that only requires the legs to be fastened…)

While you are working on this, I will interview your schoolmates to keep everyone distracted from watching you! 

(This part was largely unrehearsed, asking the SK to grade 7 students questions, to demonstrate that the stories these children love are filled with characters who are teaching them to discern between virtue and vice.)

• Who knows Beowulf? Do you think Beowulf was brave? What did he do that was brave? But wasn’t Grendel also brave, to fight him? Why not? (What you are serving matters).

• Who knows Winnie-the-Pooh? Do you think Pooh is a good friend? How do you know? Can you name some of Pooh’s friends? Why is his treatment of Eeyore telling? What makes Eeyore difficult to be friends with; why is it worth pursuing him?

• Who knows The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Tell me about someone who is kind in that story, aside from the children or Aslan (e.g. Tumnus, Beaver). What makes them kind? Was it easy for them to be kind? Isn’t the Queen kind too? She gives Edmund treats… (motivation matters).

• Who here knows The Hobbit? How does Bilbo teach us what it means to be loyal? (e.g. saves the dwarves when imprisoned by the elves in Mirkwood). Could you not also say that Smaug was loyal to his treasure?

• Who here knows the story of Pinocchio? What were some of the lessons Pinocchio had to learn before he could be a real boy? (honesty, bravery, loyalty, trustworthiness…)

In a book titled Hobbit Virtues, the author Christopher Snyder claims that “While these virtues may privately help one to become a better person, they are essential for us small and flawed creatures to communicate and get along with each other,…[and are] so crucial for us today if we want to sustain democracy and civil society.”

These children have, I hope, demonstrated that they are learning stories about virtues like bravery, friendship, kindness, loyalty, and so on; along with, and this is somehow equally important, stories about villains and their vices of greed, pride, and gluttony. And if you probe deeper with any one of these students, you will find, I hope, that they are constantly reading and hearing such stories not only here at St. Timothy’s, but also at home with their parents and at church with the leaders there. 

Home, church, and school, all playing distinct yet complementary roles in the development of these young lives.

Let’s turn our attention to the graduates again: What have you built? Three-legged stools! How did that go? Is this a stable stool? (Interesting fact: a three-legged stool never wobbles!) Do you trust it? Let’s have three of the grads stand up on the stools.

Ok, you stay up there. Who has nice handwriting? Here is a Sharpie. We are going to name the legs of the stool, and you can write them in large letters on each leg: we will call them Home, Church, and School.

Children, parents, grandparents, supporters: burn this image into your minds: these graduates are standing tall on a firm foundation. Don’t forget this: what we are doing here at St. Timothy’s is partnering with families and churches to build a strong foundation for the lives of our children. 

Graduates, these stools are to be a gift from you to the Kindergarten classroom - students who aren’t yet at the school will benefit from your work. You can each sign the bottom of each stool as well, to personalize the gift. When you’ve finished that, you can take a seat again. Let’s give them a hand!

We are teaching these children stories about characters - like Pinocchio, Winnie-the-Pooh, Beaver/Tumnus, Bilbo - who exercise real virtues, often at a real cost, in pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and we teach our children stories about villains, who exercise their strength to satisfy their own cravings for power, plenty, and pride.

And we fill their spongy brains with facts - about math, science, history, grammar, Latin, French - facts that are indifferent to their opinions, but whose truth has its origin in the ultimate Truth of the Person of God, who, they are learning, is with them and loves them deeply. So that as they grow and take the next steps, they will be oriented to serve and love the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness that have steeped their childhoods and find their fulfillment in Jesus.

So finally, graduates: that is our prayer, our vision for you. If you go on from here and you are a friend, like Winnie-the-Pooh - even if it is not always easy; if you show bravery and kindness, like Mr. Tumnus or Beaver - even when the odds are against you; if you are loyal to your friends and principles, like Bilbo - even when everyone around you is blinded by lies; and if you do all of this “as unto the Lord Jesus”: then we - your families, your churches, and your school - will have done our job. We all look forward to watching you take these next steps in your journeys. We will be with you, many of us in person, but all of us in our prayers and in the legacy we leave you from our families, our churches, and from this school - St. Timothy’s Classical Academy.

May God continue to bless you on the journey! 

Dan Kaiser is our current Board Chair, and his youngest child, Amara, was one of the 2025 graduating class. All three of his children progressed through St. Timothy’s from Kindergarten to Grade 8, a formation his wife, Trish, and he are so very grateful for.